Sprint queen Shanti Pereira, 'Grandmother' of Singlish Sylvia Toh inducted into Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame

Singapore sprint queen Shanti Pereira, together with nine other women, were inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame on Friday (Mar 8). 

The 10 women make up the 192 women who have been honoured for their outstanding achievements and contributions in Singapore so far.

Pereira is the youngest inductee this year.

“Shanti’s successes were all the more remarkable for the fact that just a few years earlier, she was dismissed by some as a one-hit wonder, an athlete who had not been able to build on her early promise,” said the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) in its press release.

The national sprinter won silver in the women’s 100m race in September 2023, in Hangzhou, China, followed by a gold in the women’s 200m, becoming the first athlete to win a track and field medal for Singapore at the Asian Games in almost 50 years. 

The last time Singapore won a gold medal was when Chee Swee Lee won the women’s 400m gold in 1974 at the Asian Games in Tehran.

Preceding her Asian Games wins, Pereira was also the first Singaporean woman to win both the 100m and 200m sprints at the SEA Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in May 2023. In July of the same year, she clinched two more gold medals at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.

Pereira was not present at the ceremony and was represented by her mother Bridget, who received the award on her behalf.

Her father, Clarence Pereira, told CNA Women: “It’s about time she gets all this recognition. She’s been working so hard to reach that level so we are very proud, the whole family’s proud and I think she made Singapore proud.”

“We know that every woman needs to be recognised for what they’ve done for themselves, for their family, for their country. We know how important it is. We’ve seen some of the inductees and we know that she can be part of them.”

Another inductee is pioneering humour writer and the ’Grandmother’ of Singlish, Sylvia Toh Paik Choo.

In 1982, Toh’s book about Singlish, Eh, Goondu, was a bestseller, selling 3,000 copies within a week and 11,000 within two months. 

It was a “controversial book” for its time as it was published when Singaporeans were exhorted to speak standard English rather than the mishmash of English, Malay and Chinese dialects that Toh described as “slanguage”.

Toh had some advice for women striving to succeed in their own fields: “You have to first find out what is your idea of success, then you can strive and achieve it. Don’t put a cushion on the seat. Think about the work, not the money.

“Girls here believe they can do anything, and they go and do everything, which is just great. (It’s) not so much about gender but about ability and talent.”

Mountaineers and endurance athletes Sim Phei Sunn and Vincere Zeng are the first two Singaporeans to ever summit K2 and Mount Everest, the two tallest mountains in the world.

Sim was 47 when she scaled K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, in July 2023. “Known as ‘The Savage Mountain’, K2 is arguably a much more difficult climb than Everest, the highest mountain,” said SCWO in its press release, adding that Sim previously climbed Everest in 2019.

Meanwhile, Zeng summited Everest in May 2023 before climbing Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, after. She then climbed K2 in July of the same year.

Both women said that mountaineering being a male-dominated space did not deter them. 

Zeng said: “Sometimes, we have a conception that there’s a difference between male and female but ... I really think sometimes just put yourself as a human being. Just do the things that you want to do, achieve the things that you want, then you might be even better.”

Likewise, Sim believes that gender is just an “artificial constraint”. 

“Generally, women in Singapore have started off on a good and high base in terms of education, career opportunities and prospects. It’s really about putting more of us out there, voicing out our thoughts and being more proactive in the areas that we want to be in,” she said.

The other inductees are:

Tan See Lai: The pioneering educational TV producer and newscaster was a household name in the 1960s. In 1987, the late newscaster became the Education Ministry’s director in charge of public relations, computer services, scholarships, higher education and pupil placement.

Linda Locke: A trailblazer in the Asian creative industry, she was the first Singaporean woman to head the local operations of an international advertising agency after she became managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi in 1984.

Mary Ann Tsao: Tsao is a pioneering advocate for successful longevity, and heads the Singapore-based Tsao Foundation that runs programmes relating to ageing and aged care. In 2022, she was named one of the United Nations’ Healthy Ageing 50 – 50 pioneering global leaders working to make the world a better place for older people.

Hadijah Rahmat: The author and poet is a Malay language and culture expert and educator who was the driving force behind the National Institute of Education’s first bachelor’s degree programme in the Malay language, launched in 2000. 

Kirtida Mekani: This champion of the environment was the founding executive director of the Singapore Environment Council in 1993, and in 2015, she received the prestigious President’s Award for the Environment.

Grace Young-Diao: The athlete and charity fundraiser is a seven-time SEA Games gold medallist and three-time Sportswoman of the Year. Since 2009, she has cycled annually to raise funds to support underserved communities in remote villages in Thailand.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame, which was founded by SCWO to celebrate Singapore’s most outstanding women in all categories of endeavour, and to document and share their stories.

SCWO president Junie Foo said: “We are showing that women are as capable as men of amazing achievements and great contributions to society. 

“We are particularly keen to get the stories of our Hall of Fame women to young children because the future is theirs to shape, and we want them to shape a society that is just and equal.”